Despite his role as a chief government's chief spokesmen for the war on Iraq - and before that the bombing of Afghanistan - he has told an interviewer that his favourite album is "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", an early 1960s masterpiece by the troubadour of American protest.

But that 1963 opus also contains three of the maestro's most passionate anti-war denunciations - "Blowin' In The Wind", "Masters of War" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall".

Mr Hoon, whose only other known eccentricity is supporting Derby County, tells the London listing magazine Time Out that being seen out at rock gigs, with his special branch minders in tow, has made people think: "Well, perhaps he's not so bad."

He admits that people may find it "odd" that a defence secretary who has led Britain into two wars would like the anti-war messages of the voice of the counter-culture 60s.

However, he explains his liking for the album as: "I see those songs as being against a particular war at a particular time."

In fact, "Masters of War" is a direct diatribe against what was then a fledgling arms industry, while "Hard Rain" was heavily influenced by the ongoing Cuban missile crisis and sense of impending nuclear doom.

"Blowin' In The Wind", meanwhile, perhaps one of Dylan's most famous songs, contains the lines: "Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly / Before they're forever banned?". This does seem to suggest not an immediate opposition to the Vietnam war, but a more philosophical rejection of war per se.

Mike Marqusee, the author of "Chimes of Freedom: The Politics of Bob Dylan's Art", said the defence secretary did not know what he was talking about.

"Geoff Hoon is just wrong. 'Freewheelin" came out in late 1962, and the Vietnam war did not get started until three years later," he said.

"Those songs are a general attack on war, and if anyone is the "Master of War", Geoff Hoon is."

The song's opening verse runs:

"Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build the big bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks."

During the protests against the Iraq war, peace marchers carried a Stop the War placard which mocked Mr Hoon's love of rock n roll, with the slogan: "You ain't nothing but a Hoon dog, lying all the time", a bastardisation of the Elvis Presley song.